With this year’sFuriosareceding into the rearview mirror, fans can now stream the movie that kicked off the whole saga.Mad Maxwill stream (appropriately enough) on Max next month. The apocalyptic 1979 thriller will be available on the streamer starting on June 28, 2025.
Medical doctor and amateur filmmakerGeorge Millermade his future directorial debut with Mad Max; inspired by car accident injuries he’d seen in the emergency room and a recent oil crisis, he conceived of a near-future Australia where madmen roamed the roads of the Outback. A then-unknownMel Gibsonwas cast in the lead, and many actual motorcyclists were recruited to play the villainous bikers of the film. It featured a number of death-defying and dangerous automotive stunts, which would become a hallmark of theMad Maxfilms; however, the production did not have a single accident during production. The film, made on a budget of $400,000 USD, was an enormous success, making $100 million at the global box office; it was the most-profitable movie of all time for nearly two decades before it was dethroned byThe Blair Witch Project.
With civilization beginning to fray, Australian highway policeman Max Rockatansky (Gibson) tries to preserve some order, even as sadistic motorcycle gangs begin to rule the roads. Leading them is the brutal Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne, who would star as Immortan Joe decades later inMad Max: Fury Road). After his partner Goose (Steve Bisley) is horribly injured in an encounter with Toecutter’s gang, Max takes a vacation with his wife Jessie (Joanne Samuel) and their young son to escape from the slow collapse of society. But he soon finds that there’s no escape from man’s inhumanity to man when Toecutter’s gang shatters his family. With nothing left to lose, he lives up to his nickname - Mad Max - as he takes out Toecutter’s gang one by one.
WithMad Maxa global success, Miller directed a sequel,Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, which featured a world completely in ruins and even more outlandish car stunts. Another sequel,Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, followed in 1985; Miller would return to theMad Maxmilieu decades later withFury Roadand the prequelFuriosa. Mad Max’s success also kicked off a massive wave of post-apocalyptic imitators and ripoffs.
Mad Maxwillstream on Max starting July 07, 2025. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
In a not-too-distant dystopian future, when man’s most precious resource – oil – has been depleted and the world plunged into war, famine and financial chaos, the last vestiges of the law in Australia attempt to restrain a vicious biker gang. Max (Mel Gibson), an officer with the Main Force Patrol, launches a personal vendetta against the gang when his wife (Joanne Samuel) and son are hunted down and murdered, leaving him with nothing but the instincts for survival and retribution.
